# Onboarding Step 7: Activate (/docs/projects/onboarding-activate)



This step is a loading screen, not a final review. The heading reads
"Activating Your Layers" and a rotating list of activation steps is
shown while the backend does keyword research and finishes
initializing layers.

## Advance condition [#advance-condition]

The screen polls project keywords every 2 seconds. As soon as the
keyword research returns hashtags, the wizard auto-advances to
[Generate first content](/docs/projects/onboarding-content-gen).

## Timeout [#timeout]

If keywords don't arrive within 3 minutes, the wizard calls
`POST /api/projects/{projectId}/purge` to delete the in-progress
project, shows a toast ("Project setup failed. Please try again."),
and routes you back to step 1.

## What's actually running [#whats-actually-running]

The real activation work happens earlier — each time you connected a
source, uploaded media, accepted an ambassador, or connected a social
account, the UI ensured the relevant project layers were created and
kicked off. This step just waits for the initial keyword research
output to land so the next (generate) step has something to work with.

The `projects` table does not have an `is_active` column — there's no
"activation" flag flipped on the project row. Activation status is
expressed through whether layers exist and are running.